Prediction No. 1: LB Adalius Thomas will sign with the 49ers in the first 72 hours of the free-agent period, which starts Thursday night.

Reasoning: The 49ers want to make a splash, they want to make it on defense, Mike Nolan knows Thomas well and there isn’t anybody on the market who fits the 49ers’ needs better than Thomas.

Oh, and the 49ers are $37.5 million under the salary cap–that means they can hand Thomas a $14-million signing bonus, amortize it over five years, and, if the guy can play, that’s a good deal.

Nolan and Scot McCloughan, like all of their peers, have hit and missed on free agency: Jonas Jennings would be a miss, Walt Harris a major hit.

Advertisement

They obviously don’t want to start spending crazy money or else they risk jumping right back into the cap black hole that destroyed the team recently.

But they were 7-9 last year and they have all that money to spend. I’m sure John and Jed York would love to field a 2007 playoff team to shut up the critics and set up a nice political stage for a new stadium push.

You don’t win any extra games by keeping money in your pocket. Well, at least not right now. And the 49ers might be thinking they can win right now.

That means Adalius Thomas as the new starting weakside LB, with Manny Lawson at strongside LB.

I’m thinking the Thomas deal happens very, very quickly or it doesn’t happen at all. So it’ll happen by Sunday, at the latest.

Prediction No. 2: All the chatter about an imminent Randy Moss trade will not pan out and he’ll be a Raider at least until the draft.

Reasoning: What could you get for him? I thought the Raiders gave up too much to get Moss in the first place, and that was two years ago, when he was actually decent.

He’s coming off of two listless seasons, he makes a ton of money, he has that bright and sunny attitude… What’s he worth? A first-round pick? No way, though I’m sure Al Davis would demand that. A second-round pick? I don’t think so.

Look at this draft: Four to six first-round WRs, including the possible No. 1 overall (Georgia Tech’s Calvin Johnson), and the Raiders happen to have the No. 1 pick overall.

I wouldn’t want Randy Moss on my team. Hey, Lane Kiffin has him on his team and probably doesn’t want Randy Moss on his team. That means he’s staying for now.

Prediction No. 3: My wi-fi will collapse before I finish this Sharks item.

So I can do this quickly: The NHL is weird. 20 games from the start of the playoffs and everybody trades everybody. There’s not a ton of logic that I can see–teams just get impulsive and itchy and boom, a billion trades a month before the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Whatever. Hockey fans: Go ahead and get mad at me. I don’t have wi-fi time to explain myself any better.

I will say that the Sharks are one of the few teams I understand. They have a young base that they’ve built around–last year they added the whopper in Joe Thornton and this year they traded away two No. 1 picks that they didn’t need and got two players that probably will help a lot in the playoffs.

So they’ll take off, possibly starting tonight. I don’t know if it means that they’ll get into the Stanley Cup finals, but nobody can say they weren’t aiming for that.

My question: How weird is it that Bill Guerin basically switches teams every year? And that Ryan Smyth, to the shock of the league and the fans in Edmonton, is traded 20 minutes before the deadline because the Oilers can’t re-sign him, yet the new CBA is supposed to help them do precisely that and he’s the heart of the franchise?

Sure there are deadline trades in baseball and the NBA and a very few in the NFL. But they aren’t these kinds of trades–the what-the-hell-let’s-just-dump-our-best-guy-right-now trades that are common place.

From a total outsider’s view: It makes following this league, even when I want to, very difficult. You start to buy into a sport when you can follow long-term storylines–the Yankees, the Patriots, the Colts, the Spurs, the Suns, whatever…

What’s the long-term storyline in Edmonton trading Ryan Smyth to the Islanders who might not re-sign him and then he moves to Wherever and then They trade him at the deadline and… ?

Tim Kawakami

Post navigation

You can inject a whole lot of life into a playoff run by getting an impact player at the trade deadline. Detroit and New Jersey are two cup winning teams that have proven it multiple times. Most teams recoup their season losses the longer they play in the post season, and teams that won’t be playing in the extra period cut their losses by March by sending attractive UFA’s elsewhere and rebuilding with the draft. Look at where Buffalo is today. You can’t tell me lower echelon teams in the NFL, MLB and NBA aren’t shipping their marquee players off to the highest bidder just when things get interesting. Who’s Koolaid are you drinking?
The NHL has a lot of problems and one of the thorniest are Luddite journalists who parachute in occasionally and criticize aspects of the sport without any objectivity. Sure, kick the NHL, everybody else does. No one from outside takes the time to build the sport up. But that would require actually getting into the sport. Who has time for that? Not the Merc.

The Cove

I HATE KAWAKAMI….(THIS WILL BE A DAILY POSTING)

Cameron Frye

Wow. The Cove, that is brilliant and oh so insightful. Thanks for sharing. Make sure you get a gold star on your homework paper before you leave. Mommy will be proud of your effort.

But if I may inject something a little more grown-up about the actual blog: Tim – multiple sources have claimed that Thomas and the 49ers have a framework deal in place already and are just waiting for the FA period to open to sign the contract. So your fearless forecast is about as fearless as me saying that if Barry stays healthy, he will break Aaron’s home run record this season.

Other than that, carry on.

Spartan Fan

Agree completely with Item #1, especially if they just lost Antonio Bryant as reported earlier today. They will need at least one if not two big splashes to keep the 49er fans at bay. Here is hoping for some big moves during free agency. Anyone want to start the I hate Norv Turner website?

Roger D

It’s a beautiful day in Tim’s neighbourhood, a beautiful day in Tim’s neighbourhood, wontcha be mine…Say Mr Tim, have you ever followed baseball? That’s right, B-A-S-E-B-A-L-L. Which team is Jeff Kent playing for this year? Where is Nomar? Which star was let go by the A’s this year? Can you say Zito? I knew you could!
Hey, from A’s to Zito, you’ve got the whole alphabet covered! Now can you tell me how many teams Mario Lemieux played for? How about Steve Yzerman? Joe Sakic? Oh! You’ve never heard of them? Then how about Nabokov, Hannan, Marleau, Cheechoo, Toskala? They live right here in your neighbourhood! Get to know them! Wontcha be…their neighbour?

Hockey Fan

Very funny stuff Robert D. However, I think Tim has a point. There will never be another Edmonton dynasty. Where year in and year out you can see Coffey,Kurri,Gretzky,Messier and the list goes on. Yes there will be big names but due to constant trading you have to start loving SJ Sharky and Teal and not particular players. Yzerman was one of the last played for one team his entire career type of player. That will be missed, but hockey is still the best sport to see in person.

Roger D

Hockey Fan: Poppycock, I say! My point is that MLB is the WORST offender in the musical chairs players parade. Remember when Mr Blockbuster dumped all his best players after the Marlins won the WS? Disgusting.

In March of 1968, the Leafs traded my favourite player, Frank Mahovlich, the Big ‘M’ after having won the SC the previous season. Of course I was devastated- I was 11. And they haven’t won it since. So, big trades in March is practically a tradition. Still, the rent-a-player thing is somewhat obnoxious- these FA’s should not be allowed to return to the team that traded them, IMO.